"The Little Drummer Boy" crossed my path several times this Christmas season. Let's go with the most recent incident first. This happens to be the reading of the National Post, the Dec. 24th edition, which I got around to this morning. In this edition there we find an article discussing how Hollywood co-opted Christmas, titled "How the crooners conquered Christmas." In the article are found many interesting observations regarding some of the very popular so-called Christmas songs.

Robert Cushman here calls "The Little Drummer Boy" an Ersatz Carol. I think he nailed it. "Ersatz Carol" is good... very good. Well said. It tells us nothing about God or Christmas. It is mostly just cute.

Which brings me to the first encounter with the song, this season. It was on FaceBook. A video, seemingly gone viral, appeared in my thread several times. Beautiful young people standing somewhere outdoors on a big rock or small mountain, in a very bright daylight, sang the song with faces full of rapture. The video came with a tagline that advertised it as the most wonderful, happy video anyone had seen in ages. Personally, I was sidetracked by the shining faces of young adults. Something was incongruous about the scene. I think it was the lack of message together with the exultation. It didn't work. It was shot in Los Angeles, we found out, and here it seems we have Hollywood crooners gone slightly pious. (I don't want to put the band down; they are probably very nice and gifted people, who have worked very hard at their craft and this video.)

The next encounter was, when a post-modern, Quaker conversation partner sent me the link to this self-same video as a "peace offering". Seeing that our exchanges are always multi-layered and ambiguous, by his choice not mine, (I am usually trying to be ulta-clear), I didn't know what to make of "peace offering". I had once sent a Thoreau quote about freedom as a "peace offering". It turns out, in the long run, that there cannot be peace between post-modernism and Christian orthodoxy. It will always be a clash.

We had a fall-out over what the song should mean to someone like me, a stick-in-the mud, old-fashioned, school-marmish, Lutheran, inauthentic, addicted to my certainties and dogma--"bickering buddy". Whatever. I love him anyways. -- "The Drummer Boy" did not serve us, because if we all walk to the beat of our own drummer, we all "authentically" walk in different directions, (all the sheep that have gone astray...) and not at all in the direction of hearing what God has to say to us in the coming of his Son, our Lord. If we don't have Him, we have nothing really. Nothing that lasts, anyhow.

My most profound interaction with "The Little Drummer Boy", however, was while caroling at the hospital. We were making our way down toward the palliative unit when we stopped at a room. I didn't know if we were in the palliative section or just a room or two before. (It is a small hospital.) In any case, we elicited a song request and the patient asked for, you guessed it, "The Little Drummer Boy", which was not contained in our 70 song strong carolling book, even though it also holds many secular songs. We might have done it from memory, seeing that almost the whole song is "rapapapums", but nevertheless, we asked the person to choose another, since we were lacking the words. The choice went to another default, another perennial favorite-- "Away in the Manger."

"Away in the Manger" is often credited to Martin Luther, but I can tell you with certainty, that it is not a German song, at all. It is truly an English song. It finishes like this:

Be near me, Lord Jesus,I ask Thee to stay,Close by me forever,and love me, I pray!Bless all the dear childrenin Thy tender careAnd take us to heaven,to Live with Thee there.Except in our booklet it finished: "And fit me for heaven, to live with you there."I was really glad we sang this song in the palliative or nearly palliative section of the hospital. "And fit me for heaven, to live with you there." Now there is a Christmas song. It was very poignant to me and I caught the eye of another choir member who seemed to sense the same thing. We almost sang "The Little Drummer Boy" to a sick or dying person, but "Away in the Manger" came to the rescue.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

"He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."Isaiah 53:3The prophet Isaiah was a seer. His book is also called a fifth gospel because he foresaw the Savior Christ so clearly. Of course, we see this in retrospect. One wonders a little bit what he thought he was saying. It must have been somewhat mystical to him. But he knew it was the truth, and the unimaginable came to be. Who is this despised man and Lord?--To have a God who is acquainted with grief, or here "familiar with pain", is to have one in whom one can confide. One with whom one can let one's guard down. One whom one can trust and this is "faith".--Yesterday, the Monday before Christmas Eve, I had a lot of shopping left to do, for lettuce and fruit, for meats and cheeses and eggnog... and what not... So, seemingly, did everybody else. The crowds were cheerful and well behaved, as Canadians usually are. But every five meters, or so, you would meet someone.And everyone was in the same boat: needing to get things done, figuring out who is going where for what and giving whom what and whether they were going to church and where and with whom. And they all had their rawness's.First, I met a woman, a dear friend and congregation member, my age, whose second husband just died. I had not seen her since his very recent death. We just stopped in our tracks and looked at each other and fondled each other, looked in each other's serious faces, ready but not to break out into tears. I didn't offer any condolences because I knew from experiences that it would be too much. We would have a scene and that was not the point. Five meters further, I met someone I work with and five meters further I met some elderly lady from the congregation. Then I still had to go to Walmart. In a one department store town, you are bound to run into people every time. But not only did I meet people from the town, I met people from all the out-lying towns. One I had not seen in a long time. She proceeded to pour out her heart about things from 2007 and onward. Everyone has things on their plate. But they all feel for me. They are very moved by my loss. It is the worst they can imagine. So, I am worthy to hear their griefs. I am acquainted with pain. My word has weight.--So it is with the Lord who is born to us. He bore everything we bore and more. He cried over Jerusalem which would not repent. So we cry this Christmas the most for those who will not turn to him. Our loved ones who have gone to be home with the Lord, are not suffering loss, we, who miss them, only have a temporary loss, but those from whom we are divided over lack of reconciliation cause us true grief. Even Jesus prayed for those who crucified him. Forgive them, they don't know what they are doing. His love is infinite. He bears everything.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

"The Four Loves" has been on the back-burner. But I always find that C.S. Lewis does me good. He provides medicine, a salve applied by a sage, a loving doctor. His dialectics have nothing ill-bred in them. He heals even while he cuts. He seems to have thought about this tension: love and affection vs. honesty and rudeness. The Bible exhorts us to speak the truth in love. Lewis exhorts us to speak freely, but with care:

"We hear a great deal about the rudeness of the rising generation. I am an oldster myself and might be expected to take the oldsters' side, but in fact I have been far more impressed by the bad manners of parents to children than by those of children to parents. Who has not been the embarrassed guest at family meals where the father or mother treated their grown-up offspring with an incivility which, offered to any other young people, would simply have terminated the acquaintance? Dogmatic assertions on matters which the children understand and their elders don't, ruthless interruptions, flat contradictions, ridicule of things the young take seriously--sometimes of their religion--insulting references to their friends, all provide an easy answer to the question 'Why are they always out? Why do they like every house better than their home?' Who does not prefer civility to barbarism?
If you asked any of these insufferable people--they are not all parents of course--why they behaved that way at home, they would reply, 'Oh, hang it all, one comes home to relax. A chap can't be always on his best behaviour. If a man can't be himself in his own house, where can he? Of course we don't want Company Manners at home. We're a happy family. We can say anything to one another here. No one minds. We all understand.'
Once again it is so nearly true yet so fatally wrong. Affection is an affair of old clothes, and easy, of the unguarded moment, of liberties which would be ill-bred if we took them with strangers. But old clothes are one thing; to wear the same shirt till it stank would be another. There are proper clothes for a garden party; but the clothes for home must be proper too, in their own different way. similarly there is a distinction between public and domestic courtesy. The root principle of both is the same: 'that no one give any kind of preference to himself'. But the more public the occasion, the more out obedience to this principle has been 'taped' or formalized. There are 'rules' of good manners. The more intimate the occasion, the less the formalization; but not therefore the less need of courtesy. On the contrary, Affection at its best practices a courtesy which is incomparably more subtle, sensitive and deep than the public kind. In public a ritual would do. At home you must have the reality which that ritual represented, or else the deafening triumphs of the greatest egoist present. You must really give no kind of preference to yourself; at a party it is enough to conceal the preference. Hence the old proverb 'come live with me and you'll know me'. Hence a man's familiar manners first reveal the true value of his (significantly odious phrase!) 'Company' or 'Party' manners. Those who leave their manners behind them when they come home from the dance or the sherry party have no real courtesy even there. They were merely aping those who had.
'We can say anything to one another.' The truth behind this is that Affection at its best wishes neither to wound nor to humiliate nor to domineer. You may address the wife of your bosom as 'Pig!' when she has inadvertently drunk your cocktail as well as her own. You may roar down the story which your father is telling once too often. You may tease and hoax and banter. You can say 'Shut up. I want to read.' You can do anything in the right tone and at the right moment--the tone and moment which are not intended to, and will not, hurt. The better the Affection the more unerringly it knows which these are (every love has its art of love). But the domestic Rudesby means something quite different when he claims liberty to say 'anything'. Having a very imperfect sort of Affection himself, or perhaps at that moment none, he arrogates to himself the beautiful liberties which only the fullest Affection has a right to or knows how to manage. He then uses them spitefully in obedience to his resentments; or ruthlessly in obedience to his egoism; or at best stupidly, lacking the art. And all the time he may have a clear conscience. He knows that Affection takes liberties. He is taking liberties. Therefore (he concludes) he is being affectionate. Resent anything and he will say that the defect of love is on your side. He is hurt. He has been misunderstood." (pp. 52-55)--I really like the "You may address the wife of your bosom as 'Pig!' when she has inadvertently drunk your cocktail as well as her own." It probably happened just like that between him and his wife. But in the setting it is not meant to hurt, nor does it hurt."Not giving preference to oneself" is not a phrase we use nowadays, and here it is the guiding principle. What does it mean? Probably just this: love your neighbor as yourself. Don't do to him what you would not like to have done to yourself. Or, as there is deep affection and knowledge, to consider the person's true needs and feelings and guide your words and actions by this understanding. Anyhow, it is all good advice as the Christmas family gatherings are approaching. It is said that many a family has a falling out after having eaten and drunk too much together. Something to watch out for in this season of Affection and indulgence.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

What is it with these people, parading him around,
preaching him from the rooftops.

The "King of the Jews".

Of all places, born and raised and died in a real place,
Judea, Bethlehem, as foretold, and in a troubled city, Jerusalem.

Jerusalem: peace in its name but rarely at peace.
The king of peace came to you and you killed him,
as did we. Peace, not of this world.

At Nelson Mandela's funeral, we couldn't tell what the hymns were.
They were in another language, the parts I heard on BBC.
But "Jerusalem" was in the song.
Nelson Mandela has gone to Jerusalem with Jesus, the King.

I turned on the radio this morning to a glorious madrigal chorus
singing full-throatedly: "Born is the Kind of Israel"!

On CBC radio, of all places.

If it weren't a "tradition", if it weren't actual, living local people singing this,
you would never get it onto CBC.

It is the last verse of "O Sacred Head now Wounded" and this is a translation:

"When I must part some day, then do not part from me. When I must suffer death, oh, then step forward. When I will be most afraid, so tear me from my fears, by the power of your own suffering and pain."

Monday, December 16, 2013

While we are talking about prayer and Hawaii, (last post), I must talk about Catholic Cathedrals. Whenever we are downtown in a large American city and it happens to be a Sunday, it seems not so simple to get to a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod church, but a huge Catholic Cathedral is at hand. So it was in San Francisco, for example, and so it was in Honolulu--right on Waikiki beach. In Hawaii it also happens that the time zone is three hours behind Edmonton's, so that one ends up getting early, even against one's wishes, to see sunrises, finely chiseled demi-gods rise out of the ocean after their first swim of the day, and notice that there is already a Catholic mass at 6:00 or 7:00 AM. The gate is open and you can walk on the driveway to get to the open church.

What I want to relate is that a big Catholic church seems to be always open for worshipers and that there seem to be many services. I recall, too, from long ago, that in my little Bavarian village, when we were waiting for public transport to get to the larger city for grammar school/ gymnasium, the older women were making their way to church at that hour for daily mass.

In the large Catholic churches, we note, too, that there always seems to be opportunity for confession and absolution; sometimes one can see people lined up for this. Usually, we only see this in some sort of sinister movie, with someone plotting murder or villains getting absolution before they head out for an evil deed, if they are not killing someone in a confessional. Since I hail from Bavaria, which is super-Catholic, and having attended Catholic school, this sort of thing is not new to me, but the fact is impressing itself on me that I meet this everywhere on my travels.

And it makes me a little jealous. Why aren't our churches open all the time so we can go in and pray? Why are there no posted times for confession and absolution?

I did go into the church on my early morning ambling and I did go and pray, there. I even genuflected the way the other people did. It seems like a good and right thing to do.--In Europe we were taught to curtsy and to bow when we met people. There can be no theological difficulty with making a gesture toward the big cross in the front. (I wouldn't have done it if it had been a Madonna in the front which can also happen in a Catholic church. This sort of thing makes me want to leave, not stay. Once we were in Syracuse on Sicily and there is found an ancient Greek temple, with Doric columns, converted to Christian church; but the whole edifice was for Mary and this is what it said on top of the front. We had never seen quite such a strange thing before.)

Nevertheless, the whole business of the availability of time and space and planned services adds something in the way of a practice of piety. The opportunity to just come into some quiet place and pray is a real gift to be relished. We could use more of it.

I am also thinking, what a blessing it is for older people to have a reason to get up in the morning, walk to church, sing and pray, receive the sacrament and get busy with some community work, as you can see them do, planning meals for the homeless, and so on.

When you come out of the church in Waikiki and you have been thus refreshed, you walk more serenely and contently. It strikes you as strange that you should be shopping, and buying and consuming every step of the way. This reminds me of Jesus' zealousness for the temple. It is a house of prayer, not for buying and selling and cheating while you are at it. -- You can only serve one master.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Snorkeling is like prayer, in a way, I thought. Recently I was able to enjoy the amazing experience of snorkeling in the ocean off the coast of Hawaii. Since in Europe we used to swim enthusiastically in any open body of water, I was able to take to the ocean like the duck to water, so to speak. We entered from a boat and it was easy and it was fun, though I worried a little about sharks. It was so easy, even a lady who had never swum before and who had brought a wet-suit managed to do it with proper flotation devices.

So, you stick your head under water and this incredible world is right there! You couldn't see it, at all, from the boat. You can't see, either, it if you lift your head back above the water. But right here with your face in the water, there is indeed an abundance of sea-life--the colorful fish, the school of fish, the longish ones just under the surface... There would be no way of imagining it if you did not see it with your own eyes. And your body is floating at the interface between two worlds. Lift your head and you see nothing but empty sky and water. Drop your head and there is an entire zoological miracle. It is a matter of your eyes just being above or below the surface.

I envision prayer like that now. There is the visible world, in which I function. There is the invisible world which I can enter by word and prayer. The invisible world is just as close at hand. In my mind and soul I can duck in an out of these, living right at the interface of both worlds, part of both.

For David says concerning him, “‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;" (Acts 2)

Through Christ, I have access to the ocean of God's love. I can call on him any time and he hears. I can call on him any time and ask for help and forgiveness. I can call on him any time and he will make paths for me to walk in. I can call on him any time and he will strengthen me with his grace.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

The other day, a discovery on Mars made a great media splash. Somehow it was determined by robotic digging and analysis, that 4 billion years ago there may have been some water somewhere on that planet; -- "salty water" it said in another report.

We all know that water is necessary for life, as is oxygen and carbon. Maybe salt, too, whatever salt they are talking about.

With this report in hand, it only took the interviewer a second to make the leap from the possible presence of water 4 billion years ago, to having found "evidence" of life on Mars. The researcher had to caution the interviewer: no, we have not found evidence of life, not even a little microbe. We would love to find evidence of a microbe.

Ya.

It's a little jump from possible water to a microbe.
Every Canadian housewife knows it.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

A commercial arrived in the mail. It was a heavy card with an image of young people lying around in a field. The aim of the advertisment was to sell something to "grey power". The caption was: "Do you remember the concert that rocked the world?"

Ehem. Checking Wikipedia we find that the concert was in 1969, so it overlaps with my power of memory and that of my parents and older cousins; but no, we never heard of Woodstock where we lived and nobody I know really has ever talked about it or reminisced about it. I wonder who did the research before they put this advertisement out in the Edmonton area.

As a high school student, I participated in a exchange to Ontario. There were town names there like that: Tavistock, Stratford and yes, I think Woodstock. This is the most I can relate.

I am afraid, the advertisement is a bust with me. Woodstock never rocked my world nor anyone's I know.

Monday, December 9, 2013

A Mandela quote floating on the internet:"It is better to lead from behind and put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory, when nice things occur. You take the front line, when there is danger."

Friday, December 6, 2013

The commonality between the picture and the article is the marketing and changing of long-standing faith, in the American way. We should probably be glad that a Disney movie has not yet been made of the Bishop's life, though Disney, admittedly, has made some very enjoyable movies.

Mike S. Adams has been there. In his own words the author "was once one of those bright kids, lost for seventeen angry years because of professors who lured me into their reason-less angst. It almost killed me. But I survived." Eventually Mike emerged from his funk and these days he is a professor of criminology at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a nationally syndicated columnist and a highly successful author. The man who once counted himself an angry young "progressive" has undergone a metamorphosis and is now a happy conservative Christian. During his tenure as an educator Mike has seen firsthand the devastating consequences that unchallenged progressive ideas can have on impressionable young minds. As an exercise he decided to write a series of short and very personal letters to a student named Zach. Zach was sort of a composite of so many of the students that he had encountered along the way. Before long his idea morphed into a book. "Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don't Understand" is a heartfelt appeal to these young people to consider a very different set of ideas. If you know a naïve young person who you believe is being led down the primrose path then offering him/her a copy of this book would be a great way to engage them and perhaps even help to instigate some serious discussion. It is certainly worth a shot!--"How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting things You Don't Understand" sounds good. What does it mean? We remember young protesters on TV, when interviewed about their views were found out to actually have no views. Facts and figures and are said not to matter or inspire--so I have been told repeatedly by professional protesters. --It seems to me lately that a lot of good and bad stuff comes out of North Carolina. As a knowledgeable person told me once, it appears to be a "hotbed'. Or maybe he said, there were a lot of "hotheads" there. I forget.2. Contrast this with Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday, whose tributes are playing on the radio, as I am typing.Nelson Mandela knew and understood what he was protesting.Mandela wasted twenty some years in prison, not able to protest, and these years were no waste, as it turned out. His lengthy incarceration became a symbol for the unreasonableness of the government and became a moral impossibility to defend. He also was a great rhetorician, giving important speeches that both soothed and raised courage and vision. (Martin Luther did the same thing when he came down from the castle to straighten out the mess in the town. He had the same skills of good brain, big heart and picturesque, memorable language, soothing and inspiring the common people. He also was a scholar and knew his stuff.)Every great leader and progressive must know the place of knowledge, of experience, of listening to the people, including the weak, and develop his skills of head, heart and language. If his "love" only means pure "passion" or energy or even just anger, or aggression, he does not have "love". More is needed. Mandela is greatly praised for his grace and inclusiveness, today. His care for the Aids victims and his efforts to include other races in South African society, as well as modernizing economic models of the reform movement. The truth and reconciliation commission and Archbishop Desmond Tutu also provided a deep, spiritual component of honesty and forgiveness. Today, people are speaking about how these principles need to be applied in our own countries and with our various mixed populations. No doubt, knowledge, and grace and wisdom are needed. Mandela embodied these. The radio keeps exploding in triumphant African song. -- But so much needs to be done, still. Africa has so far to go. There is so much poverty. So much war. So much poor health and societal disfunction. So many orphans. And, yet with all its remaining many difficulties, South Africa is a light. The samples of Mandela speeches we get today are shafts of reasonableness and true love of the people.Now, the opposing view is aired, on my radio. Nelson Mandela was on the US terrorist list until 2005. He endorsed armed struggle. He is not Desmond Tutu and he is not Martin Luther King. He is not the ever smiling Santa Claus we have been seeing on pictures and TV. But he was in politics and had to come up with a mixed program dealing with IMF, and so on. Interesting about the armed struggle. Martin Luther was also not a pacifist, per se. Not that the church was to take up the struggle using arms, (it was a Reformation point, that the church cease doing such things), but the right organization was to fulfill its duties in defending justice in active and even violent means, if necessary. The right organization would never be the church nor involve vigilante action. Insurrection was not to be carried on in the name of the gospel, or for the sake of the gospel. ( Luther himself would always fight with the pen and mouth only. But the legitimate government would play this role of enforcing just rule of law and defense of the country and citizenry. The question of something unjust like an Apartheid government had not really come up. In Medieval society it was the Jews who lived segregated and disenfranchised, however, they also insisted on living together as they needed their own butcher, their own schools, their own language, their own bathing places by the springs, etc.. Not that this justifies what went on.)How to struggle against an unjust government is always an excruciating question. Government must be available and able to enforce the rule of law and defense. We have seen armed struggle and unarmed struggle. Bonhoeffer first studied Ghandi and wanted unarmed struggle, but after a terrific soul-searching got involved with a bomb plot to kill Hitler. How do you get rid of such an evil dictator? How many millions were lost to rid the world of him. The history of mankind seems to be nothing but war. Bonhoeffer, too, was hung, as were scores of dissidents of all ages and stripes. Young Scholl was guillotined.